ExitTicket-Basic Info and Getting Started

Teachers are always needing to collect data.  You can hear the word "data" countless times throughout the school year.  Data should drive your instruction and inform you on how effective your teaching is to your students.  The problem can sometimes be finding the best method for collecting data.  I am the type of teacher that does not want to spend hours collecting, grading, and analyzing data to guide my instruction.  This is why I use ExitTicket.  The best part is that...it's now free!!!

ExitTicket is a web-based program that can be used to create assessments. This can also be done on the iPad, but I have found that creating them on the computer is much easier.  Students respond to these assessments using a web-enabled device, such as a smartphone or iPad.  I have my first graders use iPods and iPads.  

Once you have created an account you can begin to create tickets.  What is a ticket you might ask?  A ticket can come in the form of many different things based off of what you you what to assess.  You can choose from the following things:
•Launch-a pre-assessment to help guide future lessons (graded)
•Practice-simply a way to practice what's being covered in the lesson
•Exit Ticket-check for understanding (graded)
•Quiz/Test-check for understanding (graded)
•Quicket-a quick check that can be sent out on the fly

What I like about ExitTicket is your ability to connect your assessments to Common Core Standards.  In their Scorebook it gives you an overall score and then breaks it down by standard. Hello simple data collection!

Another major part of teaching is being a responsive teacher.  ExitTicket gives you immediate feedback based off of student responses.  It will even group your students into intervention groups to help them correct any difficulties and improve scores.  Being able to identify these areas for growth early allows for you as an educator to make sure that no student is left behind.  Instead of waiting for you to take the time to grade assessments, you get real-time information and can even make adjustments as you're teaching.  

If you want to get started in a quick and easy way, have your students take it as a pack-up procedure at the end of the day.  I started out by having my students respond to questions based of the learning objectives from the day.  It gives me feedback immediately on how certain students respond, whether to reteach, and keeps all this information in the scorebook.  ExitTicket gives me the information on RTI groups for the following day.

Look out for other posts on how I get feedback and make adjustments in my teaching.

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